Expiation
NOTWITHSTANDING the density of the crowd, Villefort saw it open before him. There is something so awe-inspiring in great afflictions, that, even in the worst times, the first emotion of a crowd has generally been to sympathize with the sufferer in a great catastrophe. Many people have been assassinated in a tumult; but even criminals have rarely been insulted during their trial. Thus Villefort passed through the mass of spectators, guards and officers of the Palais, and withdrew. Though he had acknowledged his guilt, he was protected by his grief. There are some situations which men understand by instinct, though their reason cannot explain them; in such cases the greatest poet is he who utters the loudest and most natural cry. This cry the crowd takes for the whole story, and it is right to do so, and still more right to regard it as sublime when it is true.
It would be difficult to describe the state of stupor in which Villefort left the Palais. Every pulse beat with feverish excitement, every nerve was strained, every vein swollen, and every part of his body seemed to be dissected into millions of agonies. Habit alone guided him through the passage; he threw aside his magisterial robe, not with any idea of what was befitting, but he could not bear the weight on his shoulders. It was a robe of Nessus pregnant with torture. Having staggered as far as the Rue Dauphine, he perceived his carriage, awoke his sleeping coachman by opening the door himself, threw himself on the cushions, and pointed toward the Faubourg Saint-Honore; the carriage drove on.
All the weight of his fallen fortune seemed suddenly to crush him; he could not foresee the consequences; he could not contemplate the future with the indifference of a cold murderer.
The thought of God filled his mind. “God,” he murmured, without knowing what he said; “God! God!” He saw the workings of a divine hand in all that had happened. The carriage rolled rapidly. Villefort while turning restlessly on the cushions, felt something press against him. He put out his hand to remove the object; it was a fan which Madame de Villefort had left in the carriage; this fan awakened a recollection which darted through his mind like lightning. He thought of his wife.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, as though a red-hot iron were piercing his heart.
During the last hour his own crime had alone been presented to his mind; now another object, not less terrible, suddenly presented itself. His wife! he had just acted the inexorable judge with her, he had condemned her to death; and she, crushed by remorse, struck with terror, covered with the shame inspired by the eloquence of his irreproachable virtue, – she, a poor, weak woman, without help or the power of defending herself against his absolute and supreme will, – she might, at that very moment, perhaps, be preparing to die.
An hour had elapsed since her condemnation: at that moment, doubtless, she was recalling all her crimes to her memory; she was asking pardon for her sins; perhaps she was even writing a letter imploring forgiveness from her virtuous husband, – a forgiveness she was purchasing with her death! Villefort again groaned with anguish and despair.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “that woman became criminal only from associating with me! I exude the infection of crime, and she has caught it as she would the typhus-fever, the cholera, the plague! And yet I have punished her – I have dared to tell her – I have – ‘Repent and die!’ But no! she must not die, she shall live and follow me. We will flee from Paris, and go far as the earth reaches. I told her of the scaffold; oh, Heavens! how could I utter the word? It awaits me also! Yes, we will fly: I will confess all to her, – I will tell her daily that I, also, have committed a crime! – Oh! what an alliance with the tiger and the serpent! worthy wife of such as I am! She must live that my infamy may diminish hers.”
Villefort dashed open the window in front of the carriage. “Faster! faster!” he cried, in a tone which electrified the coachman. The horses, impelled by fear, flew toward the house.
“Yes, yes,” repeated Villefort, as he approached his home – “yes, that woman must live, she must repent, and educate my son, the sole survivor, with the exception of the indestructible old man, of the wreck of my house. She loves him; it was for his sake she has committed these crimes. We ought never to despair of the heart of a mother who loves her child; she will repent; no one will know she has been guilty; the crimes which have taken place in my house, though they now occupy the public mind, will be forgotten in time; or if, indeed, a few enemies should remember them, why, then, I will add them to my list of crimes. What will it signify if one, two, or three more are added? My wife and child shall escape from this gulf, carrying treasures with them; she will live and may yet be happy, since her child, in whom all her love is centered, will be with her. I shall have performed a good action, and my heart will be lighter.”
And the procureur du roi breathed more freely than he had done for some time.
The carriage stopped at the door of the hotel. Villefort leaped out the carriage, and saw his servants surprised at his early return: he could read no other expression on their features. Neither of them spoke to him; they merely stood aside to let him pass by, as usual, nothing more. As he passed by M. Noirtier’s room, he perceived, through the half-open door, two figures; but he experienced no curiosity to know who was visiting his father; anxiety carried him on further.
“Come,” he said, as he ascended the stairs leading to his wife’s room, “nothing is changed here.”
He then closed the door of the landing.
“No one must disturb us,” he said; “I must speak freely to her, accuse myself, and say –” he approached the door, touched the crystal handle, which yielded to his hand. “Not locked!” he cried; “that is well.”